Episode #2: The three common blind spots that could derail your ERP comms strategy
How to surface the early warning signs that shape adoption, credibility, and ROI long before go-live exposes the gaps.
Three Blind Spots That Sink Even Well-Run Tech Projects
Most tech programs don’t fail at go-live. They fail months earlier—when leaders overlook the organisational signals that quietly shape behaviour, trust, and adoption.
History, context, and meaning determine whether a rollout lands cleanly or becomes another costly reminder that technical readiness is not the same as behavioural readiness.
Even well-structured programs face adoption risk when leaders treat each rollout as a fresh start. Employees don’t. They carry the memory of previous failures, current stress levels, and unclear strategic narratives into every new initiative.
This article breaks down three common blind spots—history, context, and strategic alignment—that consistently undermine ROI, regardless of platform or sector.
If you recognise these patterns early, you protect adoption, reduce stakeholder risk, and spare your program from preventable credibility damage.
The Change Landscape CIOs Can’t Ignore
When a program underperforms at go-live, leaders often respond with more training, more reminders, or more technical fixes. But low usage is rarely about the system. It’s a behavioural signal—a downstream effect of something earlier in the journey.
What we see across organisations is simple:
Projects fail when leaders remain blind to the emotional, historical, and strategic conditions into which the change arrives.
This isn’t theory. It’s pattern recognition after hundreds of implementations.
Understanding your change landscape is the difference between a rollout that quietly stalls and one that moves with real organisational momentum.
Blind Spot 1: History Blindness
Every program has a technical blueprint. Far fewer have a memory blueprint.
Employees remember the last ERP attempt that died quietly.
They remember the workflow tool that was replaced twice.
They remember the leadership message that promised “this time will be different.”
History shapes expectations. Expectations shape behaviour.
In one client case, the word “SAP” was enough to shut down the room. Five previous attempts had been abandoned without explanation. By the time the sixth attempt arrived, employees weren’t resisting—they were predicting another quiet failure.
This isn’t cynicism.
This is behavioral logic.
When history isn’t acknowledged, people protect themselves by withholding commitment until the program proves it won’t disappear. This slows decisions, delays engagement, and erodes adoption long before training starts.
Ignoring history increases stakeholder risk. Addressing it early builds credibility.
Blind Spot 2: Context Blindness
Even the best-crafted rollout will fail if it ignores organisational climate.
Many leaders assume employees receive change messages in a neutral state. They don’t. They receive them in the context of everything else happening inside the company.
Announcing a major transformation during cost-cutting? Launch fatigue. Low receptivity. Minimal trust.
Pushing engagement campaigns while teams worry about job security? People tune out by necessity, not defiance.
Behavioural science is consistent here:
Receptivity to change fluctuates with emotional state.
Launch during high stress, and readiness drops sharply.
This doesn’t mean you wait for perfect conditions.
It means you match your engagement approach to reality:
Reduce cognitive load.
Sequence messaging more carefully.
Cut internal noise so the program stands out.
Address the elephant in the room early—don’t talk around it.
Context blindness turns an avoidable timing issue into an adoption problem.
Blind Spot 3: Big Picture Blindness
If people can’t connect the change to something bigger, they default to local logic:
“What does this mean for my team? My workload? My targets?”
Disconnected teams make disconnected decisions.
A typical SAP rollout might touch Finance, Supply Chain, Sales, and HR. If each of these groups experiences the change as an isolated disruption, you’re fighting multiple small fires instead of building a shared direction of travel.
This is where an umbrella narrative matters.
Not a slogan. Not a corporate campaign.
A clear explanation of how the change serves the broader advantage of the business.
For example:
“We’re unlocking our data potential so every function can make faster, better decisions.”
Suddenly, each functional change ties back to something that makes sense at scale.
People see the logic behind the disruption.
Resistance lowers because meaning increases.
When this big picture is missing, even small issues feel bigger—because they’re disconnected from purpose.
Why This Matters for Adoption and ROI
These blind spots aren’t soft issues. They drive hard outcomes:
Lower usage after go-live
Delayed value realisation
Higher support costs
More rework
Credibility loss with the board
In every stalled program we’ve seen, the warning signs were visible months before anyone opened a training deck.
And in every successful one, leaders made the invisible, visible early.
This is why mapping your change landscape isn’t a communication exercise—it’s a risk mitigation strategy.
Key Takeaways: What IT Leaders Should Remember
Low adoption is a late symptom of early blind spots.
History shapes expectations—and expectations shape behaviour.
Context determines receptivity; ignoring it increases stakeholder risk.
A clear umbrella narrative aligns functions and reduces friction.
Mapping your change landscape is an adoption safeguard, not a comms exercise.
About your host
Arne Kötting founded COSYN after years of seeing organisations struggle with the human side of tech change. He built the Change Playbook to codify what actually works based on 20 years of watching these patterns.
The Change Playbook is designed for IT program teams to confidently manage the human side of tech change in-house, without expensive consulting dependencies.
His conversational style cuts through complexity to reveal the fundamental principles that make tech change communication work - principles you can apply 1:1 to your own transformation challenges.
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